THE EMPIRE AND THE BARBARIANSThe convenient practice of using barbarian troops as federates for the Roman
army, a prominent feature of this period, was also expensive, and their main-
tenance could involve money as well as supplies.^44 But the amounts of gold
that might be involved as subsidies or payments to barbarian leaders were
large: in AD 408, for example, Alaric demanded 4,000 lb of gold for his recent
operations on behalf of the imperial government in Epirus. The example of
Alaric and his Goths also shows how easily clever barbarian leaders could
play off east and west. The Visigoths are said to have invaded Italy in 401
because the eastern government had cut off their regular subsidies.^45 Why
this should have happened is not clear, but Thrace was also threatened at
the time by Goths under Gainas and other barbarians who are described as
Huns; at any rate, Alaric saw more advantage in moving against Italy, where
he was alternately fought and bought off by Stilicho. The latter’s dangerous
policy of attempting to buy the service of Alaric and his troops ended when
he himself fell in AD 408; but when this happened and Alaric’s demands for
payment in return for retreating to Pannonia were rejected, and he besieged
Rome (408–9), he fi xed the price of movements of food into the city at 5,000
lb of gold and 30,000 lb of silver.^46 The cat-and-mouse game continued, and
we fi nd Alaric’s successor Athaulf alternately plundering Italy and fi ghting on
the Roman side in Gaul.
When Athaulf became king, he returned again to Rome, and whatever
had escaped the fi rst sack his Goths stripped bare like locusts, not merely
despoiling Italy of its private wealth but also of its public resources.
(Jordanes, Get. 31)His marriage to Galla Placidia was another kind of barbarian manipulation:
Then Athaulf set out for Gaul, leaving Honorius Augustus stripped of
his wealth, to be sure, yet pleased at heart because he was now a sort of
kinsman of his.
(ibid.)In 418 what remained of the Gothic army of Alaric was settled on Roman land
in Aquitaine: ‘they received land in Aquitaine from Toulouse to the ocean’.^47
The twenty or more years of plundering, negotiating, bargaining and fi ghting
before the Gothic settlement vividly demonstrate the ambiguities, the cost
and the dangers with which the Romans were faced in their attempts to deal
with the barbarians. Nor is it clear on what terms the land was granted, or later
settlements were made; indeed, they must surely have varied from one case
to another.^48 The traditional view is that the barbarians, beginning with the
Visigoths, were to be entitled to a share of the land on which they were set-
tled, in the surprisingly high proportion of two-thirds to one-third. Examples
would be the settlements of Alans and Burgundians in 440 and 443 (Chron.
Min. I.660) and Ostrogothic Italy, where, however, the share may have been